Senators Taking Sides In AT&T/T Mobile Merger

Sniper98G writes "US senators have no official power to block the AT&T/T Mobile merger. But that has not stopped them from making strong recommendations to the FCC and the department of justice. This whole situation has left me asking 'If the US senate and house are so concerned about a Triploy in wireless communication, where are the hearings about why most US household only have access to one or two wired communication providers?'"

Comments

This is not what you think

[erroneus]

They had plenty of time to "take positions" earlier but remained silent. I have to wonder if this has more to do with collecting campaign funding than actually caring about a cause.

Re:This is not what you think

[Fluffeh]

No, it isn't purely about campaign funds (though not saying that it doesn't come into the equation). I see this sort of thing ALL the time at work. I think of it as the "Me too, I have input!" syndrome. Take a middle or senior manager, then talk to them about something they have no clue about or haven't ever spoken about, then count to three and get interrupted at two - at which point the chime in with (most of the time) some totally irrelevant input, sometimes totally wrong input, or bring up a "new" point that was already discussed in detail by people who know what they are talking about in the last meeting.

Do these points bring value to a conversation? Nope. Do they help the rest of the people in a meeting? Nope. Do they make the person look like they are involved? Sure, to others who also have no clue - perhaps they even make the person look smart to others with even less clue.

Now, I present Exhibit A. The career politician. These folks spend their entire lives in the above syndrome. Sadly, most of the time they aren't managed out of the company or in this case voted out of office.

Re:Wireless = National, Wired = Local

[magamiako1]

There's still comparatively heavy competition in most markets for wired communications services.

^What? There is *no* competition in "most markets" for wired communication. None. Zero. Nada. There's so much conspiring to work against it that it's sickening. MOST wired "competition" is merely reselling connections from the larger providers in a way to lower the cost through the purchase of bulk bandwidth. As an example in Canada, Rogers and Teksavvy.

AT&T and Verizon are known to do this in the US as well with small providers.

business literature

[Weezul]

It's well established in the business literature that large stock mergers like this almost always hurt the acquiring company's stock holders, as well as employees and consumers. I'd imagine this even applies to the acquired company's stock holders.

As a rule, the only people that benefit from the acquisition are the executives of the acquiring company, who's power & compensation increase vaguely proportionally to the size of the company they run. In effect, the acquiring executives are devaluing their own stock holders investments to make themselves more important and force those stock holders to vote them more compensation.

Just fyi, cash mergers average out like investing in the S&P500. In a cash merger, the acquiring company's executives have real utility for cash on hand, so they negotiate a fair price or make better strategic decisions even when overpaying. In the stock merger, they simply acquire the largest company possible using other people's money.